The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has just announced that it’s grant-making will focus entirely on issues related to social justice. Elizabeth Alexander, President of the Foundation, said that their concern will be “Who haven’t we reached? Who haven’t we supported? Who hasn’t felt Mellon was interested in their work?” Here is link to the Artnet article that brought this to my attention: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/mellon-foundation-social-justice-grants-1891607.
This is the continuation of a pattern that has been developing for years. Funders that would, in the 1960’s, generously support the nonprofit arts industry have, one by one, shifted their emphasis. The number of individuals, foundations, corporations, and government entities that focus on funding “the arts” has been diminishing precipitously. They want the things they support to improve the lives of the many. (I discussed this last year in On the Horizon.) Even local arts agencies are wanting to see community impact in the work they support.
The Mellon announcement is not a wakeup call. The alarm has been sounding for years. Any arts organization that is not moving full speed ahead to do things that their communities find valuable will increasingly discover that their pleas for support fall on deaf ears. And, of course, the only way to discover what those communities might find valuable is to develop trusting relationships with them. You begin by talking with and listening to them.
I can’t say it strongly enough. Business as usual (that is, we decide what we want to present and “they” should come) is not tenable. Awareness of, concern for, and partnering to address community interests is non-optional for arts organizations that hope to be in existence in another generation. And “generation” might be an optimistic timeline for those that do not respond to this. The future many have been trying not to see is now.
Engage!
Doug
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Thank you Doug for spreading the gospel that the arts need and should be responsive to the communities they serve in real and meaningful ways. That it’s not enough to just present programs without engaging in conversations with your audiences, communities and constituents. I work with the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute in NYC and we’ve launched #ArtsGoBlack a campaign to challenge arts groups to address racial inequality. http://www.cccadi.org.
Great post, Doug.
Unfortunately, most large legacy institutions in the fine and performing arts weren’t designed to support the lives of the many. They were designed to satisfy an elite audience and to provide – at best – trickle-down benefits to the rest of the community. “We’re here to indulge folks at the top of the cultural hierarchy, and to try, if possible, to pull others up to their level.”
These organizations can’t change. It’s not in their nature. Yet they twist themselves into all sorts of grotesque contortions trying to satisfy funders’ changing demands. You know this, Doug. These are the orchestras that advertise engagement activities as if they’re programs, or theaters that promote condescending outreach initiatives as benevolent gifts to the little people, or insular art museums that put upholstered cushions on the front steps to make the building look less intimidating to the lowly plebeian. (My local museum actually did this.)
I appreciate the funders’ desire to make their money do more for a larger swath of the population, but I don’t think they’ll ever be able to make these leopards change their spots.
And so many of the things the leopards are doing to make their spots look different are just plain embarrassing.
(Please feel free to imagine a photo here of the bright orange cushions adorning the vacant brutalist steps of the Palm Springs Art Museum in the blistering 115 degree desert heat.)
Thanks, Trevor. I totally understand your points and you may be absolutely correct. As you and I have been around this block before, you know that I must press on in the (very possibly naîve hope) that change is possible. Existential oblivion might be a motivator. . . . And it might not.
You know I like to pick on the big guys (it’s so easy), but I recognize that they’re just the pinnacle of a pyramid where the base is comprised of a multitude of small, local, well-integrated organizations. If the foundations want to spread their wealth at the base where it matters more to more deserving organizations – and actually reaches more people – I’m all for it.
We can’t afford to pretend anymore that filtering money through the top of the pyramid is a useful endeavor.